Other forms: manholes
A manhole is the round covered opening in the street leading down to the sewers. A manhole cover, lift the manhole, fall down a manhole.
The covers are round for a good reason: a circle is the one shape that cannot fall through its own hole however you turn it. Many places now say access chamber or maintenance hole instead, though manhole is still what everyone says.
1nounmanholeA covered opening in the street leading to the sewers.
“Workers lifted the manhole cover and climbed down to fix the sewer.”
manhole is an opening.
Man plus hole, from the nineteenth century, when it named an opening a worker could climb through.
From man + hole.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA